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Definition of suicide gene in English:

suicide gene

noun

An introduced gene that causes a tumor cell to produce an enzyme that will attract a drug lethal to the tumor.

‘The second method is to use a chemical to trigger what the committee called ‘suicide genes’ in bacteria or fungi if they escape confinement and pose a risk, though this method has never been field tested.’

‘These mutant sperm would then be more likely to reach an egg, and as a result the mutant suicide gene would become more common.’

‘Typically, these studies have tested the use of the suicide gene from the herpes simplex virus to develop a gene therapy approach that kills cancer cells in the presence of the antiviral drug - gancyclovir.’

‘The polymers, which are both pH and temperature sensitive, may also function someday as ‘suicide genes’ for cancer cells, forcing the damaged cells to self-destruct, Mallapragada said.’

‘After 24 hours of continuous exposure to the radio waves, the suicide genes were turned on in far more leukaemia cells than in a control population that had not been exposed.’